Somerton cheer coach terminated by Yuma Union High School District

The decision was made final on Wednesday night, and comes following the coach's effort to protect one of her athletes from bullying

(Editor's note: Upon further investigation, we learned that Alyssa Plaza's teaching certification is still listed as active on the Arizona Department of Education website. It will be up to the ADE to decide if her certification is suspended or removed).

SOMERTON, Ariz. (KYMA, KECY) - Somerton cheerleading coach Alyssa Plaza has been terminated by the Yuma Union High School District.

The school board made the decision official during their board meeting on Wednesday, unanimously agreeing to make the termination final.

Plaza spoke to KYMA, as the district's decision comes following her taking measures to protect her only male cheerleader from bullying.

"What had happened was that he was being bullied in the locker room, in the boy's bathroom, and he went to his admin, said that he was not feeling safe," Plaza said.

To combat the issue, Plaza had created a system to allow for the athlete to change inside the girl's locker room.

"His conditions were that there was to be nobody (else) changing, the other teams had to be gone," Plaza said.

Plaza then says she was informed by the school of an investigation into the boy's use of the girls' locker room, with no warning of any wrong doing.

"I showed up to work six weeks ago and they called me into the office, they just kind of told me that I was on reassignment, which wasn't anything disciplinary," Plaza said.

According to Plaza, she was never contacted by anyone from the district to get her side of the story.

"The fact that they did an investigation but never asked me any questions is what kind of hurt me a lot," Plaza said.

Upon further investigation, we learned that Alyssa Plaza's teaching certification is still listed as active on the Arizona Department of Education website. It will be up to the ADE to decide if her certification is suspended or removed).

KYMA reached out to both Somerton's athletic director and YUHSD, both of whom said they could not comment on personnel matters.